Hilaria Baldwin is opening up about the shame she felt — and judgment she faced — when announcing the birth of her sixth child via surrogate, daughter Lucia, after suffering two miscarriages.
The mom of seven and wife to Alec Baldwin who has built a social media following around her candid parenting experiences opened up about her IVF journey and surrogacy on her iHeartRadio podcast “Witches Anonymous,” in an emotional conversation with co-host Michelle Campbell Mason and “The Young and the Restless” actress Michelle Stafford.
“People assume that I’m less of a mom and she’s less my daughter,” Baldwin, 38, said on her podcast. “Looking through some articles that were written about my daughter and me, when she was born in Feb. 2021 … they were really mean.”
Last March, Page Six reported the Baldwins used a surrogate to carry their baby girl, Lucia, five months after Hilaria gave birth to son Eduardo. Fans speculated about Lucia for months, wondering whether the couple adopted or used a surrogate. On her podcast, Baldwin said she felt shamed for having a baby via surrogate and that she was hesitant to speak publicly on the subject.
“One of the reasons I didn’t share it with people is because they weren’t nice about it. It made me so sad the feeling of judgment and on such innocence. The bond between parent and child is so beautiful. She [Lucia] is just as attached to me as all my other ones,” Baldwin said on her podcast.
The yoga guru let on that she was giving birth via surrogacy back in 2021 when she followed a surrogacy company on Instagram, Page Six reported. When a fan questioned the birth, Alec snapped on his Instagram, telling the fan to “shut the f—k up and mind your own business,” in a comment.
On Monday, Baldwin shared an extensive Instagram post about the experience.
“When Marilu was born, I didn’t feel that the world was a safe place for me to share,” she wrote on Instagram, noting that critics questioning her daughter’s existence “brought me to tears.”
Baldwin began the episode of her podcast by speaking about actress Jennifer Aniston’s failed pregnancy attempts and the pressure women face to give birth naturally, transitioning into a conversation with soap star Michelle Stafford who opened up about her IVF journey at age 38, and the judgement she faced when using a surrogate.
Baldwin could relate with her own painful experience, recalling 10 grueling days of injections and feeling physical discomfort when she was undergoing IVF. She also pushed back at the stigma that IVF and using surrogacy is the “easy way to have babies.”
“It’s not easy. It’s painful,” she said.